


where the wild things are

by buttonbug



Category: Twilight Series - All Media Types
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe, Aro sees Bella and is SHOOK, F/M, Honestly OOC, Kind of a soulmate thing, Mates, Mind Reader, Soulmates, Vampires, Vampires being vampires, a lot of quotes from literature bc it’s Bella swan lmao, also gross vampires, bella is moody, bella probably kills people, canon AU, complementary abilities, goes wildly off the rails, honestly just chaos, i tried and failed, murder probably too, ooh true love, true mate, we love love here tbh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-31
Updated: 2015-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:46:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24299065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buttonbug/pseuds/buttonbug
Summary: They always did say that some abilities went together.or the one where Bella walks in the throne room and it ruins everythingor the one where Aro and Bella are kind of soulmates
Relationships: Bella Swan/Aro
Comments: 4
Kudos: 98





	1. chapter one

_but hold her down with soggy clothes and breezeblocks_

_._

chapter one

.

_The exquisite faces all turned toward our party as we entered the room. Most of the immortals were dressed in inconspicuous pants and shirts—things that wouldn't stick out at all on the streets below. But the man who spoke first wore one of the long robes. It was pitch-black, and brushed against the floor. For a moment, I thought his long, jet-black hair was the hood of his cloak._

_"Jane, dear one, you've returned!" he cried in evident delight. His voice was just a soft sighing._

_He drifted forward, and the movement flowed with such surreal grace that I gawked, my mouth hanging open. Even Alice, whose every motion looked like dancing, could not compare. I was only more astonished as he floated closer and I could see his face. It was not like the unnaturally attractive faces that surrounded him (for he did not approach us alone; the entire group converged around him, some following, and some walking ahead of him with the alert manner of bodyguards). I couldn't decide if his face was beautiful or not._

_I suppose the features were perfect. But he was as different from the vampires beside him as they were from me. His skin was translucently white, like onionskin, and it looked just as delicate—it stood in shocking contrast to the long black hair that framed his face. I felt a strange, horrifying urge to touch his cheek, to see if it was softer than Edward's or Alice's, or if it was powdery, like chalk. His eyes were red, the same as the others around him, but the color was clouded, milky; I wondered if his vision was affected by the haze. He glided to Jane, took her face in his papery hands, kissed her lightly on her full lips, and then floated back a step._

_"Yes, Master." Jane smiled; the expression made her look like an angelic child. "I brought him back alive, just as you wished."_

_"Ah, Jane." He smiled, too. "You are such a comfort to me." He turned his misty eyes toward us, and the smile brightened—became ecstatic. "And Alice and Bella, too!" he rejoiced, clapping his thin hands together. "This is a happy surprise! Wonderful!"_

Our eyes met.

Against all odds, a single quote emerged from my exhausted mind, a quiet whisper of, “ _It was love at first sight, at last sight, at ever and ever sight.”_

Upon entrance to the castle, I had clung to Edward, afraid he might vanish again. He’d clung to me much the same. Moments ago, I had welcomed his touch. The coolness of his body close to mine—it felt familiar and safe in a place that wasn’t.

Now it felt wrong.

Like I was reaching out to steady myself on a hot stove. My eyes never left his face, no matter how desperately I wanted them to. I wanted to look at Edward, feel the adoration for him that was bubbling up in my throat, threatening to spill out in a bold confession for a man who I had not so much as exchanged a word with.

“No,” whispered Edward suddenly, voice broken in a way I didn’t think possible. “Not her.”

Unconsciously, I had taken a step forward, just as Aro had. Alice murmured, “Oh, Bella.”

To Edward, she said, “I didn’t see.”

I glanced at Edward quickly, a second long enough for Aro to have appeared in front of me when my eyes returned to their original position on the throne. Delicately, he reached a hand up to touch my cheek, his fingertips ghosting over my skin and brushing a strand of hair over my ear. I resisted the urge to lean into his touch.

“Leave us,” he said. It seemed that all at once the room was clear. Distantly, as if looking through a window, I wondered if Edward and Alice struggled against the command.

“Do you understand?” His ruby eyes studied my face, soaking in every detail. I knew this because I did the same to him. I felt, quite strongly in that moment that if I could only remember one thing from my human life, it would be this moment. Aro’s hands hovered over my arms. At some point I’d brought them up to reach for him, but had never fully made contact. We stood there, still as statues. Pygmalion and his creation. I didn’t know which I was in this moment, but the allusion felt fitting.

I thought that even given all the words, in all the languages, and all the time to string them together, I wouldn’t be able to do so in a way that fully encapsulated everything I felt in that moment with him. Guilt. Anguish. Happiness. Toska. Dor. La douleur exquise. Wonder. Sorrow. Love.

I had always thought that Frida Kahlo had been strange in her poetry about Diego Rivera. _In my madness. In my dream - in the blotter - in the point of my pen - in the pencils - in the landscapes - in the food - in the metal - in imagination_. Aro was everywhere.

I was sick with emotion. Aro’s words hardly registered. I didn’t understand, I didn’t have the words. I was swimming in an endless sea. With Edward, I flew. We were birds. With Jacob, I a bird and he a fish. With Aro, I thought we might be something else completely. A bird may love a fish, but where would they live?

I thought I had understood love at first sight. With Edward, it had been slowly and then all at once. I did not know if what I felt was love, but I thought it could become something like that. The connect was overwhelming, and with a shattering realization, I understood why Sam Uley had not returned to Leah Clearwater. I did not love Aro, not yet. But it is impossible to not love the sun for the warmth it gives.

I shook my head when I understood he wanted a tangible answer. Aro’s hand ran down my hair. I shivered. Alice had described her meeting with Jasper once. She waiting in that diner everyday for a year, ordering a coffee she would not drink. He walked in one day to get out of the rain, and suddenly it was as though everything was okay again. I wondered if Aro felt this way. Did he know I was coming? Had he sensed the moment as Alice had? Or was it as much of a surprise for him as it was for me?

“My dearest Bella,” said Aro boldly. “Edward Cullen must die.”

Wait, what?

The world halted. The plethora of overwhelming emotions that had curled inside me mere moments ago evaporated in an instant, and I looked at the ruler of this secret world with disgust.

“No.” It’s the first thing he’s ever heard me say.

Somehow, I register it as important, our first words. Aro had uttered a question. A command. And me, a refusal. I knew on a visceral level, the same certainty as when I’d known when I had fallen in love with Edward, that this would set the tone for the rest of our relationship. For the first time in my life, as Aro looked at me in wonder, amazement, and rage—did I understand true power.

I stared back apathetically, firm in my stance. The feelings inspired by Aro, as strong as they were, did not effect me the same as him.

I was only human, after all.

Aro said nothing, and willfully, I turned away from his grasp. His hands clung to me, tight enough to bruise. Another quote sprung to mind, this one from a children’s novel, “ _Oh, please don't go—we'll eat you up—we love you so!”_

The Volturi would kill Edward for the perceived crime of loving me. Of not loving me enough. Of me loving him. Of me not loving him enough. This would come at Aro’s command. It might not be now, or in 100 years. But one day, Aro would kill him for having met me first. I refused.

“My Bella—“ began Aro, his voice stiff. I cut him off.

“I’ll eat you whole,” I heard myself say. “Edward Cullen will live if you want anything from me.”

I didn’t know if I’d recognize myself if I looked in the mirror at this moment. It seemed very much like a dream, as if I was watching myself move and speak through television screen. Aro took a step back. It seemed he might have not recognized me either. He’d seen Edward’s memories of me, from when he’d begged them to kill him. He saw the meekness. The quiet girl who liked classic novels and preferred to be alone. Aro seemed to forget the girl who was willing to sacrifice herself for her mother.

“He lives,” agreed Aro finally. “But you stay.”

I opened my mouth to argue, but quickly shut it again. I would never return to Forks. I was a ghost, an apparition to the people that had loved me. My human life was drawing to a close it seemed. I agreed. He allowed the others in. Edward appeared next to me, sullen and eyes dark. He looked worse than before, and judging by the pained expression on his face, he knew what had transpired between Aro and myself.

I imagined if we could speak, he would bring up my soul again. Edward was likely to compare the arrangement as me selling my soul. And perhaps he was correct. Perhaps I had sold it in order to keep the Cullens safe. Even with the pain they’d cause, I couldn’t bare the thought of being responsible for their deaths. Thoughts of Edward dying pained me greatly. If this was the price, my soul, for their lives, I would gladly pay it. I looked to Aro once more.

If souls were real, I imagined his and mine were the same.


	2. chapter two

.

_do you know where the wild things go?_

.

chapter two

.

Aro didn’t frighten me as he once had, in Carlisle’s stories of him. Once, I’d seen his painting and shivered in fear. Now, as his fingers traced my skin gently, I shivered in a different way. I had been in Volterra for 3 weeks. I was treated like spun glass. Delicate and prone to breaking. I knew, on some level that my time as a human was limited, but Aro had yet to mention anything concrete.

Or anything at all.

It remained unclear if this was because the thought had not occurred to him, if he was waiting for a good time, or if it had something to do with Sulpicia.

I knew he loved her, for all the draw he felt towards me. Vampire mating, from my limited understanding, wasn’t rare. Finding a good match was common. A better match coming along wasn’t unheard of either.

Feeling the pull of a mate was. Aro spoke very little on the subject, saying only that the only vampires I’d encountered with the pull on our level was Rosalie and Emmett. It was an instant connection, similar to the imprint process the wolves had. It caused a yearn.

Aro’s hold on the world didn’t depend on me being happy. I didn’t depend on him for anything. I felt much in his presence, and he felt much in mine. I was a shield, and he a mind reader. We felt the pull of complimentary abilities, but it was more.

I had asked him, on the fifth day, what he did when he was without me. “Why, darling, I don’t live at all when I’m not with you.”

His words rolled around my head, and if felt aptly fitting. I was alive when he was gone. But I don’t think I lived. Demetri had quietly explained that this is what it felt like to have a mate. He’d had one once, a young vampire called Anippe. She had perished over 100 years ago, and though Demetri seemed to have moved on, he sounded truly alive when he spoke of her.

I don’t live at all when I’m not with you.

Sulpicia remained.

My thoughts often strayed to Edward, to the Cullens, to Jacob Black. As Aro’s hand curled against my cheek, my thoughts silent to him. I thought desperately that perhaps this is how Judas felt when he realized Jesus would die for his betrayal. Was I Judas? Did Edward see this as a betrayal? Had I kissed him, and given him away to the villagers that wanted to kill him? Or was I the one being kissed? Edward had brought me into this world, and Aro wouldn’t allow me to leave while he walked the Earth.

“How is she?” I asked Aro, secretly reveling in the anger that flashed in his dark eyes. “Sulpicia? I read her poetry once, you know. Or was that another Sulpicia?”

Aro turned his back to me, and viciously, I was vindicated. “It was.”

“Who was Cerinthus?” I asked placidly, politely.

His jaw clenched. “Do not speak of things you know nothing about, Isabella.”

“I see,” I remarked. “Just as I am not allowed to speak of home, or Edward. I will add your wife to that list.”

He was furious. I could tell by the stillness he had taken on. Weeks ago, I would have considered this drastic and cruel. Now, it felt called for. I had been locked in a windowless room since my arrival, with only whoever stood guard and Aro’s fleeting visits for company. I was not permitted to explore, or look at anything. A sick part of me enjoyed it.

As the vampires liked to remind me, I was only human.

“Life is full of disappointment, dear one.” he remarked acidly. “My marriage will simply be one of them for you.”

“Oh yes,” I agreed uncaringly. “As a little girl I always dreamed of being a mistress.”

Aro snarled.

“Get over yourself, that’s what you’ve made me.” I stared, furious at him suddenly. “I was loved once, and you took that away.”

And then he was upon me, lips pressed against mine. He kissed me suddenly, and passionately. I kissed him back. Just as suddenly as I was in his embrace, he was gone.

.

Demetri smuggled me books. I was positive everyone knew about it, the growing stack on my bedside table surely gave it away—but the supposed disapproval was oddly enticing. I had a growing reputation among the Guard, specifically that I enjoyed causing trouble. It was hilarious to me that I was considered formidable to a group of vampires when I was incapable of so much as leaving my room. I physically could not have left even if I tried, the door was too heavy. My humiliation was unreal the first time I’d tried to open it, only to learn I was too physically weak to push it open.

In the weeks I’d been here, I’d started to feel like the ill fated protagonist of a gothic tragedy. The clothing I wore was provided each time I bathed, long white dresses. I thought Aro preferred me in white, and that’s where it was coming from. I felt like Rapunzel, without the hair. 

I had fallen into an odd routine. Wake, bathe in the claw foot bathtub, comb my hair, read, and press my face against the door and try and catch glimpses of whoever walked by. I had begun a game of trying to figure out the eye colors of the vampires I encountered. I was nearly certain Demetri had brown eyes, and Aro had surely had blue eyes—the color of the ocean. I could see it so vividly in my mind’s eye, Aro with pale eyes and dark hair.

Aro’s visits had become rare since he’d kissed me. He hadn’t done so again, no matter what I said, or how close I got. I didn’t know what game I was playing anymore—in my boredom I had lost some of the resolve I’d had at the beginning.

I loved Edward. I knew this, I did.

But where Edward was the stars in the night sky, Aro was everything else. He was the Earth, the sun, the moon, and the night that held the stars. Aro was in the pages in the books Demetri brought me, he was in the prose Shakespeare wrote. I saw him in all the colors, in all the lines. I didn’t know when it had happened, but suddenly every love song I ever heard was about him.

The truth was, I think had I not been locked away, I still wouldn’t have left Volterra.

I was reading when he entered. He was enraged. My eyes widened, setting down my book slowly. I’d seen Aro upset, angry, I’ve inspired these emotions myself—but never like this. Aro could rage at me all he liked, but I suspected he’d be incapable of causing me physical harm.

I stood slowly, moving toward him like one might attempt to move away from a rabid dog. Gently, my hand came to rest on between his shoulder blades.

“Have you ever heard the story of Pygmalion?”

Aro laughed, turning so suddenly I didn’t know he’d moved until he rested his forehead against mine, eyes closed. “Yes, my dear one.”

“Do you think she loved him back?” I wasn’t completely sure where I was going with this, but it felt as good of a distraction as any. “The story speaks of Pygmalion’s love for the statue’s beauty. But it never says if she feels the same.”

“Time was different then,” was all he said.

“So it didn’t matter?”

“No.” said Aro simply. “It didn’t.”

“Well,” I said slowly. “That must have been lonely if she hadn’t.”

Aro was silent for a moment, and I began looking around the room for a different topic, hopeful that one might stand out to me. He spoke again before it mattered.

“Yes, I suppose that is true.” He said this as though the thought of loving someone and them not loving him back had never concerned him. His milky eyes bore into mine, and I understood Aro more then I had ever before. He’d spent his entire existence assuming anyone he cared for loved him in return. Inanely, distantly, perhaps a little hysterically, I wondered if he would enjoy the Smiths.

“Don’t worry,” I said softly, almost unaware of myself. Seeing Aro so desolate made me ache in a way I hadn’t understood to be possible. “It hurts, but not forever.”

He didn’t ask how I knew.

.


	3. Chapter 3

_the fear has gripped me but here i go_

.

chapter three

.

It happened all very quickly from then on.

Sulpicia had vanished like a shadow facing the sun. I remained uncertain what had truly occurred, and I never broached the subject again. Aro was never as patient as Edward had been.

It burned as much as it had the first time, but Aro didn’t stop it. I screamed until I choked on my own blood, and then I screamed some more. _Abandon all hope, you who enter._ At some point, I was unaware when, I’d begun to compare the change to Hell. Fire consumed me.

I burned.

.

I was ravenous.

.

Hunger is blinding. The first days—weeks—months, upon my wakening were blinded by the burn in my throat, the ache in my chest when I was too far from him. I ached in my throat and my chest. I had never known hunger like this. I hungered for blood. For knowledge. For religion. For Aro, I hungered for him perhaps the most.

Vampires, I learned quickly, were creatures of hunger. We starved for everything. Rosalie starved for humanity, for children. Jasper starved for freedom, for safety. We craved. Humans were so fickle and weak, and vampires, forever unchanging and beautiful, we craved everything they had.

It was then, my teeth slicing open the throat of my meal, that I understood Edward on a deeper level. Edward had craved me as I craved blood.

.

Aro kissed me again, and again. My hunger burned, but not as hot as before. My hunger for him never faded.

No matter how much I wished they would.

My memories from before, when I was human, faded as the days passed—I knew some things, there were people I had loved, but they all felt distant. I remembered Aro best. I remembered seeing him, the feelings he inspired in me. I understood what he was to me, even in the worst of my hunger, I understood that I would follow Aro wherever he wandered.

As it was, he was in Volterra.

I remained as well.

.

I was allowed to explore to castle now. Demetri shadowed me, a far enough distance that it allowed the illusion of freedom. My shield was impenetrable, and the Guard followed me still.

I had slowly, painfully, began to come back to myself. My name was Isabella. Aro called me Bella. Nobody else did. I drank human blood and I enjoyed reading. Demetri was my personal guard. I imagined he had volunteered. He brought me books.

I clung to the things I knew, memorizing all the lines and cracks in the walls. Aro came and went, never leaving the Castle. I was permitted to explore, so long as Demetri remained close.

Time passed slowly, painfully.

My life was peaceful. I managed the hunger, the desires I had suffered for my first year in this life. I was content. Aro and I spoke rarely, but grew to understand each other in a unique way. He was very expressive. I wasn’t. Somehow it worked.

My simple friendship with Demetri grew, perhaps stronger than my bond with Aro—a bond that had been neglected in the haze of my newborn era. We had taken up drawing the characters in the books he brought me, laughing at the poorly rendered illustrations. They covered the walls in my room, and the pile of books beside the bed had grown into a bookshelf taking up the wall.

Aro would sit in a chair in the corner, holding me close to his chest as I read him my favorite paragraphs. That was always random, the Volturi ran as needed. Sometimes it was in the early hours of the morning, or late into the night, or in the afternoon when the sun hung high in the sky. Those were the best parts. Aro’s dislike of Jane Austen caused me to laugh, and if I had been human, I imagined the laughter would’ve happened until I cried. Vampires didn’t cry. Not from happiness or sorrow.

This afterlife of mine was peaceful, simple.

And then it wasn’t.

.

Aro’s hand cradled my cheek. I stared back at him, my vivid red eyes locking onto his cloudy ones. He was older, much older then I could comprehend. My hand drifted up to touch the hand on my face. Aro could not read my mind, and like Edward, I knew it had become a strong desire of his. My arrival had caused heads to turn, nostrils to flare and eyes to darken. My eyes never left Aro’s.

“Bella,” he said, a fake smile crossing his face. “We have guests.”

I turned, ruby red eyes falling on the strangers. I recognized none of them. A bored expression crossed my face, and I settled into the role that was expected of me.

“Hello,” I said simply. I exhaled, my eyes drifting back to Aro expectantly. “Was that all?”

A real smile. “The Cullens seem to believe you are here against your will, my darling.”

The Cullens? I blinked, gaze returning to the strangers. Upon a second glance, they did begin to look familiar. The blonde hair and golden eyes of Carlisle Cullen stared back at me. Huh. I wasn’t surprised I didn’t recognize him. I didn’t even remember the name of my mother anymore.

I thought, once, that would have horrified me.

I didn’t hunger for humanity.

“I’m fine,” I declared. “Thank you for coming.”

Without a glance, I beckoned Demetri forward, my command ringing through the silent hall, “Come, Demetri. I want to see the petunias.”

“Yes, my queen.”

.

Edward stayed, for a time.

.

Of all the knowledge I had consumed in my afterlife, the one that resonated most deeply occurred in the afternoon, the sun low in the sky, during the most rainy summer on record. Edward Cullen approached with the timidness of a doe, his orange eyes downcast as he moved beside Demetri.

Demetri didn’t move, merely looking at Edward like he was a particularly interesting species of insect. I sat on the ledge of the fountain, skin sparkling in the sun. Didyme’s statue looked resplendent in the twilight hours, and I rather enjoyed looking upon her.

“Bella,” began Edward, eliciting a sound of disapproval from Demetri. Bella was my name. But it wasn’t for the creatures I was supposed to control. The informality of the situation was not lost on me, and once again, I thought it was nice Aro could not hear the thoughts in my head.

Edward looked pained.

“Isabella,” he corrected softly. “Does he make you happy?”

I tilted my head, wondering, abstractly, if I was supposed to feel something. I longed for it. A part of me wailed, screamed at causing him distress. Another part of me conjured up the swell of rejection I had once experienced at the hand of this man.

“I don’t imagine it is any business of yours,” I replied neutrally.

He closed his eyes. “Could you ever forgive me, for the pain I caused you once?”

I stood slowly, approaching him. I stopped once I was next to his shoulder, facing the other way, I looked straight ahead and mumbled, “Oh Edward. I don’t even think of you.

It was a lie of course. I thought of Edward occasionally, the same way I imagined was normal to reminisce on past loves in the quiet of the evening—particularly when comparing your current relationship.

I loved Edward, and he loved me. Once, I’d loved him so strongly I’d been willing give myself up so that he might live.

And then. The fool returned.

I’d grown distant in my vampirism, isolated from the softness humanity had given me. It was unlikely I’d risk my own life for another’s now. This did not mean it was any less infuriating Edward Cullen had thrown away my sacrifice with such little care and ease.

And perhaps, a small, selfish part of me wanted him to hurt as he’d hurt me.


	4. Chapter 4

_never kisses all you ever send are fullstops_

_._

chapter four

.

The sunlight was blinding.

Aro seemed particularly displeased with me, likely do to the reminder that Edward Cullen existed, and had been bold enough to steal my first kiss. I didn’t see why it mattered, as Aro hardly kissed me as it was. As the weeks wore on, it became apparent that Edward would remain. My love for him was gone, and I’d told him as much, but whatever part of him that had cared about me once was apparently back at full force.

Demetri brought me an iPod for the anniversary of my first year in Volterra passed. I became intrigued with French music, and filled the thing with Edith Piaf and set out on a mission to learn all the words to songs I didn’t speak the language of.

_Tish, that’s French!_

Edward Cullen existed in Volterra like a perverse shadow, looming at the most inappropriate and frankly bizarre spots of the castle. His ruby red eyes left me jarred, and stirred something in me so deep I almost felt something akin to pity. He watched me, and and—I felt regret for how callous I had been.

I opened my mouth, suddenly desperate to fix this rift between us. Demetri stood politely off to the side as I approached my first love. Aro would see this, but it would be without my feelings, my intentions, my understanding of the events.

I found, inanely, I did not care.

I didn’t need Aro to be happy. I needed him near, nothing more.

“I never really knew you,” I realized suddenly. “I tried too.”

Edward looked as though he wanted to argue, but a quick glance at Demetri seemed to put that idea out of his head. He swallowed. “Funny,” he admitted quietly, sadly. “I feel much the same about you.”

Guilt welled up in my stomach, and I found myself saying, “I am a shield. Just as I was as a human. I believe Carlisle’s theory rings true, perhaps. We do seem to become everything we were at the time of our transformation, but more.”

“You were everything,” he said quietly, at the risk of his own death. Demetri looked terribly out of place, and my mind wandered over once more to Aro.

“I eluded you then as I elude you now,” I remarked. I turned, once again pausing. I glanced at him, this time. “Leave this place. Leave and never return.”

.

Edward was gone by dawn.

.

Aro’s rage was a hot, burning monster. His smiles sinister and the truth, the rage that curled and simmer was poorly masked behind the bubbly facade he portrayed. Not everyone saw it immediately. That was their mistake.

I didn’t move from my spot in the window, my eyes focused on the skies. It was a lovely view, and I enjoyed the sunrise.

“I never asked,” he finally said. His tone was casual, as he picked up the latest book we’d began, flipping it to read the back impassively. I watched from the corner of my eye, making a point not to fully look at him even as he dropped it onto the floor. “If you loved him, young Edward.”

“I believe I must be an infant then,” I said acidly. “If Edward Cullen is young in your eyes. Or is there another reason you refuse to acknowledge what we are to each other?”

Aro’s gaze never wavered. I thought, based on our past arguments on this same topic, he would have cracked. His eyes never left mine, glassy and pale, they trailed over my face like it held the answer, as though I held the answer.

“Are you unhappy?” He inquired suddenly, as though the possibility had simply never occurred to him before now, never been a consequence before right now.

“Aren’t you?” It seemed highly unlikely that the other half of this unlikely, and frankly odd pair would be. My misery clung to me like a cloak, and while I reveled in the small instances of happiness I found—the feeling of turning a page in my hand, the smell of paper, Demetri’s constant, yet comforting presence, and the moments with Aro that weren’t marred by the shadow of Edward Cullen.

Aro said nothing.

“I’m a fool,” I said finally, turning to look at him and the book he’d let fall. A sick feeling welled in my stomach at the sight of Jane Eyre. “Don’t you know?”

I forced him to ask. “Know what?”

“You are cruel,” he might have flinched, if he’d allowed himself. “You keep me under lock and key, I am forbidden from doing the most simple of tasks, and by all rights, I should still love Edward Cullen.”

I swung my legs forward, moving to stand in front of him with a fluidity I never would have dreamed of in my human life. Charlotte Bronte had described it better, so I told him, “All my heart is yours, sir: it belongs to you; and with you it would remain if fate were to exile the rest of me from your presence forever.”

Aro kissed me as though I was a precious, delicate thing—the first in my vampirism. It would not be the last.

.

He enjoyed the silence of my mind, I knew. His fingers ghosted across my skin, gently. In the moonlight, he looked much different. I thought I liked him best like this, how he looked at me now. His left hand tracing patterns on my skin, his right knotted in my hair, the look in his eye was something that made me feel powerful. A distant awareness that if anything ever happened to me, Aro would burn the world in retribution stirred in my mind, and yet, I found myself incapable of caring about such a possibility. As it was, anyone that wished me any harm would need to get through the Volturi Guard, and then risk being tracked by Demetri.

“Dance with me,” I said suddenly. Aro blinked, a slow smile crossing his face. It was the most genuine, honest one I’d seen in some time, so unlike the ones he wore with others.

That night, we danced in my room until the sun rose. We danced to no music. And I loved him.

.


End file.
